Delhi High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Jayant Nath, J. passed a permanent injunction decree against the defendants, restraining them from using the trademark “AAJ TAK AAMNE SAAMNE”; “AAJ TAK”; “aajtakaamnesaamne.com” or any other trademark deceptively or phonetically similar to registered trademark “AAJ TAK”.
In the present case, the plaintiffs filed the suit for permanent injunction against the defendants for infringement and passing off trademark “AAJ TAK” or any other trademark deceptively similar to plaintiffs registered trademark “AAJ TAK” in relation to magazine, newspaper, journal etc.
The contentions as placed upon by the plaintiffs were that they were the registered owner of immensely popular trademark “AAJ TAK” which has been licensed to Plaintiff 2 for running a 24 hour Hindi news channel. Defendant 1 was an individual who claimed to own, print and publish fortnightly magazine “AAJ TAK AAMNE SAAMNE”. Plaintiffs came to know recently of the infringement and violation of their trademark by the defendants when they received an email through defendant’s employee.
Further, the plaintiff submitted that the act of the defendant was not only dishonest, illegal and malafide but clearly infringed upon the intellectual property rights of the plaintiffs. Plaintiff 1 was the registered proprietor of the trademark “AAJ TAK” along with various other composites in various classes which were mentioned in the plaint within the meaning of Section 2(zg) of Trade Marks Act, 1999. The said trademark “AAJ TAK” had earned the status of a “Well-Known Trademark”. Defendants were clearly trying to ride and encash the goodwill earned by the plaintiffs over a long period of use.
Therefore, the High Court was of the view that the averments made in the plaint and the unrebutted evidence filed by the plaintiffs established that they were the registered proprietor of the said trademark “AAJ TAK”, thus they had a statutory right to the exclusive use of the same. A decree of permanent injunction was passed in favour of the plaintiffs due to the clear violation of their rights and lacking bonafide on the part of the defendants. [Living Media India Ltd. v. Mandeep Kaur, CS (COMM) 990 of 2016, decided on 16-11-2018]
